She was leaving Hanane behind.

The boat cut through the sand as easily as if it were water, and Dedele maneuvered it with an expert’s touch. Afua’s magic granted the vessel unnatural speed, the wood beneath Karina’s fingers almost lifelike in its warmth.

But they weren’t safe yet. Hundreds of yards ahead, dozens of soldiers on horseback charged at them from the checkpoint outside the Western Gate. Arrows whizzed by the sand barge, and Karina knocked Afua to the side to save her from being impaled through the chest.

Dedele tried to maneuver the boat around the line, but they were trapped on all sides, the soldiers closing in fast. Karina shrank against the railing, powerless to save anyone once again.

She was eight years old, and her family was burning alive in a fire of her own making.

She was twelve years old, and the chasm between her and her mother was growing wider by the day.

She was herself as she was, standing on the edge of everything she had forced herself to forget.

A single thought cut through the noise:

My mother wouldn’t want me to die here.

Closing her eyes, Karina visualized her nkra as a jumbled silver knot in her heart. She plunged her fists into the knot, but the more she tried to detangle it, the tighter it became. The soldiers moved closer, cutting off their one chance at freedom. Karina thought back to the night that had changed everything, remembered the surge of power as she’d summoned the storm that would tear her family apart forever.

Karina screamed, pain like she’d never known coursing through her.

The last thing she saw was the girl she had been all those years ago. Smiling brighter than any star, her younger self reached her hands out and Karina grabbed them, wrapping the small fingers in her own.

Throwing her head back, she laughed, and the knot of her magic unraveled.

Moving in rhythm to her laughter, rain fell on Ziran for the first time in ten years.

Karina imagined the rain whipping through the city with piercing screams. She imagined ancient foundations built to withstand no more than an inch of water broken under the weight of the flooding, and the biting gales launching anything untethered through the air, smashing into homes and people. She imagined everyone on the platform fleeing for safety, Farid saving Hanane because that was what he did, Malik’s body being lost beneath the deluge.

Karina gave the storm a single order: Forward. And it obliged, like a dog eager to please its master. Bolstered by the slamming winds, the sand barge burst through the blockade, faster than anyone could see. The boat’s bindings screamed in protest, and a vein popped in Afua’s forehead as she sank her fingers deeper into the wood.

Now that the magic had returned to her, Karina could not believe she had ever let herself forget how right it felt in her hands. After the fire, she had folded into bits and let it fade away, long forgotten.

Never again.

The power she had denied for so long was now going to save their lives.

35

Malik

“I still don’t see why I need a new name.”

“If I call you ?w?, everyone will know who you are. If you want to be human, you have to have a human name.”

“Fine. Name me.”

“. . . Idir? I heard it in a story once.”

“. . . Idir. I like that.”

“His army is only a day’s march from the city, and the reinforcements from Arkwasi won’t arrive in time.”

“Even if he makes it here, everything is going to be all right.”

“No, it won’t! I’m not letting him take this city, and I’m not going back to a life in chains! Never again . . . There has to be some way to keep them out . . .”

“Mama? What are you—no! Wait, Mama, please, I’m sorry! Baba, help! Mama, I’m sorry, please, I’m sorry! Mama!”

“Shh, dear heart, it’s okay. It won’t even hurt. Just trust me.”

Malik pulled himself from Idir’s memories with a lurch. He lay flat on his back inside his mind while the spirit struggled weakly against the bark binding him to the lemon tree. Neither of them fought for control, as there was nothing left to fight over.

“Your son,” Malik whispered. “Bahia Alahari sacrificed him to create the Barrier and end the war.”

Idir gave a dry laugh.

“Nkra is a curious force. It responds entirely to bonds, with no regard for whether those bonds are positive or negative. The stronger the bond between two things is, the more nkra is generated. And the amount of nkra created when you kill someone you love . . . I wasn’t originally the intended target of the Barrier, but when I realized what she planned to do, she banished me nonetheless.”

Idir slumped against the tree, the fight leaving his body. “Bahia murdered our son, and somehow I became the villain of this story.” He turned his face to the sky. “But the Barrier is gone, and the portion of his soul that was tied to it is now free to move on to the realm after death. Even if I have nothing else, I have that.”

Malik’s heart ached, a pain that had nothing to do with his wound. The world around them faded further. “One more question.”

“You talk a lot for a dying creature.”

“If you want to end Bahia’s bloodline, why did you help resurrect the dead princess?”

This time, Idir’s laugh was genuine. “The dead are the dead are the dead, boy. There is a big difference between a living person and a lich.”

Malik shuddered. According to the old stories, a lich was little more than a mindless walking corpse powered by dark magic.

Just what wretched being had Farid created in that fire?

The world around them had broken apart to near nothingness now. With the last of his strength, Malik took control of his mind. The branches of the lemon tree wrapped themselves around Idir’s emaciated frame until he was only a face among the bark.

“There’s no point to this,” said the spirit wearily. “You are dead whether I am in control or not.”

But there was. A blood oath became null and void the moment one or both of its members passed. Once Malik was gone, Nadia would be free, and this knowledge was why he was able to face his death with no fear.

Malik closed his eyes for one last moment in his body.

Not as Adil. Not as Idir.

As himself and no one else.

36

Karina

Karina’s storm had taken on a life of its own, and she no longer controlled the screaming gales. With Ziran far behind them, their barge blasted forward at a breakneck speed. Blood poured from Afua’s nose as she struggled to keep the vessel from falling apart, and Karina tried once more to bring the storm to a halt, but it was like trying to leash a lion with only a piece of thread.

“Please stop,” she begged. Karina searched the sky overhead for anything that might help them, but there was nothing but rain pelting into the dry earth and dark storm clouds roiling overhead.

“Stop,” Karina commanded again. Nothing happened. The barge began to splinter beneath their feet, and Dedele yelled a warning. Squeezing her eyes shut, Karina screamed for the storm to cease.

And it did.

All three of them flew forward as the sand barge slammed to a halt. The storm vanished, the clouds rolling away to reveal a sea of constellations. Afua released her grip on the ship’s deck and fell on her face.

Swearing softly to herself, Dedele knelt beside Afua and slapped the girl’s cheek. “Come on, get up. You’re all right.”

After several unbearable minutes, Afua’s eyes fluttered open with a groan. “The average camel can give up to forty gallons of milk per day if properly cared for.”

Karina let out a sob of relief. For once, the Great Mother had answered her prayers.

As Dedele wiped the blood from Afua’s face, Karina looked around. They were alone in a world of starlight and sand, Ziran little more than a bright dot on the horizon. Surrounding them were looming rock formations and strange lights that vanished when she tried to focus on them for too long.

For the first time in a thousand years, an Alahari had left Ziran, and it was all because of her. Karina looked at her own hands in fear and awe. A childish part of her wondered if her ancestors might smite her for disobeying one of their family’s most important rules.

“We’ll have to get moving again soon, but if we don’t rest now, our corpses will be making this journey for us,” said Dedele as she propped Afua against the barge’s railing.

“I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” said Karina.

Dedele laughed. “It’s not every day you get to save the sultana. I was honestly excited when your maid approached me with this plan after the wakama tournament. It was smart of her to know the council would be so busy following the false Arkwasian lead that they’d fail to look into anyone beneath them.”

Shame filled Karina at the mention of the Zirani’s prejudice. Relying on those bigoted beliefs had saved her life, but that didn’t mean they were something to be proud of.